Bishop Hill Greens running scared of debate
;)
Scaredy cat photo by Iris under CC. https://www.flickr.com/photos/irisphotos/8340124055Greens have never been keen on being challenged on their views and with the spotlight on Paris at the moment they are even more keen that they only get soft interviews. I did a BBC interview a while ago and was told when the booking was made that I was up against Lord Deben. However, shortly beforehand I was told that the great man was "no longer available", no doubt not wanting to have anything he'd said about his business interests to the Energy and Climate Change Commmittee mentioned on air.
Prince Charles is a case in point too. According to the Guardian he has said that he will only appear on Channel Four news if he is allowed to vet the questions beforehand and has full editorial control. Channel Four has told him where to go of course, although the article hints that Sky News may have agreed to the same terms in a recent interview with HRH.
Meanwhile Natalie Bennet, the leader of the Green party has refused to appear on the Week in Westminster opposite Nigel Lawson.
Could be talking to Week in Westminster on #climatechange. Declined to be on with Nigel Lawson - preposterous views shouldn't be legitimised
— Natalie Bennett (@natalieben) December 2, 2015
Not that this will make any difference. The greens have so many supporters in the mainstream media that they will always be able to line up some more soft interviews.
Bishop Hill
Of course Natalie Bennet is happy in the company of violent thugs:
Reader Comments (89)
'Declined to be on with Nigel Lawson - preposterous views shouldn't be legitimised'
***************
Coming from Natalie Bennett, that is utterly priceless.
no doubt not wanting to have anything he'd said about his business interests to the Energy and Climate Change Commmittee mentioned on air.
Go on then, try getting Lawson to be transparent about the GWPFs funding. LOL.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. " Someone sad that. Don't know ho.
Probably Karl Marx or Shakespeare.
But it has truth in it.
So what purpose does Natalie Bennett see in not debating?
Does she think she is not good?
Or that Lawson's views may be "preposterous" but are not evil?
Abandoning debate delegitimises the normative power of Environmentalism.
As far as Natalie Bennett is concerned that clearly points up the status of Greens as cultists. Ms. Bennetts's showings on the media have not been particularly successful and it's noticeable that Greens have been cultivating stories from tame editors in Somerset / Wiltshire with closed comments
Running away from debate .... I heard that pavement teams from the Greens were instructed to ignore / disengage from anybody challenging.
Next thing will be a tithe on members and the construction of New Kingdom Halls....
Will "The Week in Westminster" go ahead with the piece anyway ? - I suspect that would happen if it were Lawson refusing to appear with Bennett....
fwiw - here's a YouTube of Gavin Schmidt refusing to sit down with Roy Spencer. His demeanor on exit from the chair speaks volumes for Gav's approach to the issues....
@Phil Clarke - That's BS and inversion on a stick.
The Quote is from Edmund Burke
hy would I decline to debate with Creationists? Would you, if you were a geographer, agree to have a debate with a Flat-Earther? There comes a point when you have to say you are — by agreeing to appear on a platform with somebody like that — you are giving them status. If a real scientist appears on a platform; if say, a reproductive scientist appeared on a platform with an advocate of the Stork Theory…
But, I will say this: that I’ve never actually dared to use the formula that my colleague, Robert May — Lord May — who’s one of Britain’s — actually, he’s Australian, come to think of it — most distinguished scientists. He was the government Chief Scientific Adviser for a while and then president of the Royal Society. What he says when he’s asked to have a debate with a Creationist,
“That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine.”
Richard Dawkins.
Hi Andrew
I have the same experience in Holland. I was invited by Radio 1 for a debate. I asked for a serious opponent, someone from KNMI. But KNMI didn't want. Last week I was speaking for a student society and my opponent would be a well known Dutch paleo scientist but he declined as well...
So much for the science is settled :)
Marcel
@ Phil Clarke. Phil, you know perfectly well that if GWPF or any sceptic organisation released details of donors, the Green rent-a-mob would be all over the donor until the support was withdrawn. Likewise, prominent Greens refuse debate because they know that there are now so many holes in the Great Carbon Scam that they would be trounced publicly. Your post appears to be both ingenuous and profoundly hypocritical - in other words, standard Green activism.
Do you not get the point? Firstly science isn't really about debate. A scientific idea isn't more credible simply because the person presenting it is somehow a convincing speaker. Secondly, when dealing with people who will promote the satellite temperature record as Gospel, while highlighting adjustments to the surface temperature record, what are you meant to do? If you're going to debate someone, you at least have to have some convidence that they're interested in an honest discussion, not feel that you're going to have to face a series of cherry-picked - and misleading - observations.
Marcel,
Maybe you should at least consider the possibility that people don't want to debate with you because they don't regard you as someone who is interested in an honest debate. At least consider it.
@Phil Clarke - That's BS and inversion on a stick.
An opportunity from a *very* sympathetic media outlet to shoot down a prominent denier? - pull the other one.
attp - you really struggle with the projection thing don't you?
Maybe you should at least consider the possibility that people don't want to debate with you because they don't regard you as someone who is interested in an honest debate. At least consider it.- ATTP
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha,..........can't breathe....... hahahahahahahahahahahaha !!!!!
Caroline Lucas was forced to deal with the "deniers" on the Daily Politics early with this week, a very rare occurrence of a green on the BBC being outnumbered, normally they are given carte blanche to educate the masses. Peter Lilley was the other guest, so she had to deal with him and Andrew Neil, and was forced to deploy the energy storage lie when arguing about renewables.
ATTP~ 'bollocks'
Funny, that is exactly what your side claims skeptics' arguments boil down to. You are a projectionist extraordinaire.
"Secondly, when dealing with people who will promote the satellite temperature record as Gospel, while highlighting adjustments to the surface temperature record, what are you meant to do?......you're going to have to face a series of cherry-picked - and misleading - observations"
Ignoring the more advanced satellite temperatures which have almost total coverage and using only the more sparse and less reliable land & sea-based data with heavy adjustments is rather worse cherry-picking. A scientist should consider them all, along with their relative merits! These clots are easily hanged by their own words 97% of the time. What do we expect from a pause-denier though!
But Lawson should comment only on science policy. As a non-scientist you can only quote scientific papers to make a scientific point. A debate with someone who freely admits to knowing nothing much about the science is a pyrrhic victory.
As I understand it, Lord Lawson accepts as true the output of the IPCC. Is Natalie Bennet saying that she does not?
Ken Rice/ATTP/whatever,
Glad you understand it's not about persuasion, herd mentality or anything so tribal - guess we can safely park the faked 'consensus' or plain deceitful '97%' nonsense then.
It's entirely about facts. Facts are observations. Facts are not obtained from models. Or even averaged runs of (utterly failed) models.
Maybe we're getting somewhere then. How does you particular brand of physics explain 18 years and 9 months of global temperature stasis whilst 30% of humanity's entire carbon dioxide output has been pumped into the atmosphere?
These facts determine that carbon dioxide cannot be the 'control knob' of global temperatures. No debate necessary, game over.
Oops.
... and then there's logic
Flat Earthers refuse to accept evidence that is contrary to their belief. It is, therefore, not worthwhile debating with them except to expose them to ridicule.
Yet that alone is worthwhile as people will be saved from following their error.
Now which side refuses to discuss actual evidence?
The answer to his question is, of course, to be ridiculed.The greens know they are in a ridiculous position without any hope of defending themselves with evidence.
That is why they won't debate.
There is a huge reason why you have to have public debate, again and again: That it cos the public have to vote on such things , and to be able to vote, they have to be informed.
..And that means they have to have their concerns addressed.., whether ATTP thinks they've already been addressed or not.
It's no use saying "But the science academy says comrade Stalin is the #1 man for the job, there is no debate", when the public at home are thinking "What about those stories that he's a murdering thug?"
..Furthermore is counter-productive to a cause if they are seen as suppressing debate, the feeling against them simmers away building and building.
The world's best non-debate...ever
.Q: Are you questioning this report’s credibility completely?
Pachauri: I am questioning this evidence. They are totally wrong. This is one government report. The IPCC uses thousands of scientists and uses peer-reviewed literature … [Raina’s report] is, if I may say so, voodoo science, this is not science.
Q: The Minister says the IPCC report is “alarmist”.
Pachauri: I don’t think he has any business questioning a body that has established its credentials over the last 21 years, and whose reports are accepted by every government of the world including India.
Q: Are you willing to sit down with the Minister … ?
Pachauri: No, I will not sit down with the Minister … If this report is all that solid, let them publish it, let it go through a peer review process … I question these [Raina’s] findings completely. They don’t make sense to me at all.
Pachauri was, of course, refusing to debate a report that Himalayan glaciers would not be disappearing by 2035 as per the IPCC report.
Caroline Lucas was extremely funny on QT last evening. She got a bit shrill at the end ,wanting to answer a question about global warming and COP21.
Unfortunately it was a question that was not asked and at 1% of the vote, it looks like the people of Oldham are not that interested either.
It is quite simple; the government will not allow any debate at the moment because of the financial implications involved.
As we can see with Paris where at least 40,000 people are gathered this is a substantial industry employing many tens of millions people worldwide, perhaps running to a trillion dollars per year. The developed nations economies are all bouncing along the bottom of a deep recession, with no quick end in sight, and the last thing that they can afford is another financial crash which would be caused if the green blob/renewable/climate change mob were thrown to the wind.
All honest and objective scientists and all honest and objective politicians now realise that CAGW was exaggerated and is not and will not happen, but the problem is that presently developed nations can not afford to ditch this trillion dollar industry because of the severe repercussions that would follow with job losses and collapse of industries and financial services who are so heavily invested in it.
This is a very thorny problem since this green blob/renewable/climate change is pushing developed nations into even greater recession due to high energy prices and uncompetitiveness that this brings with it, causing energy intensive industries to close down (loss of employment, loss of tax revenue, higher benefit bill etc) and then relocate to the Far East where prices are cheaper, thereby leading developed nations to import more thereby worsening the trade deficit.
Thus in a nut shell, the developed nations are now in a position whereby they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they do ditch this industry, the loss of a trillion per year industry will be severe, and if they do not ditch this industry, it will simply push the developed nations into ever further recession and hasten the rise of the Far East over the developed west.
I do not think that politicians know how to deal with it, ie. how to extract themselves from it with a soft landing, even though they can see the writing on the wall.
That is why Paris will be all talk and no substance. The developed nations cannot afford to give away money, but likewise cannot presently afford to say that it is all cr*p and close down the show. No, the show must go on even if only to buy some time whilst a suitable exit strategy can be formulated.
Mikky
Question Time last night finished with a rather disgruntled Caroline Lucas. As Dimbleby called time Lucas expressed incredulity at their being no discussion of climate change especially as the Paris meeting was taking place.
Dimbleby explained that the discussion on the Syrian situation had taken up a large part of the programme, but finished with 'I promise we will have a question on it next time you are on'!
Who said the questions were not stacked?
Big story is that Piers Corbyn was given a big slot on the BBC last night and the alarmists are frothing all over twitter about it. I think it was a space filler in the middle of the night whilst they were waiting for the by-election results to come in.
There are worldwide clips on the This Week In Politics website.
1. 2.30 minutes Piers presenting his case ..brandishing a graph saying 'temp is cooling and that official figs are fiddled'
2. 9 minutes of him being challenged face to face by @AfNeil
I was thinking Piers would happily go on against any scientist or activist, but it would be almost certain that any of those on the BBC's speed-dial would refuse to go up against him. full prog
- The hyper alarmist Maslin and his mates have just been given another UNCHALLENGED hour to spout off on BBC NewsHour Extra
Green Sand
I think it's safe to say that in this instance Dimbleby was simply stroking her feathers.
I would expect to see a "green" question of some sort next time she's on because questions are (AFAIK) tailored to an extent to suit the make-up of the panel as well as what is currently topical.
Or just maybe someone at the Beeb is at last saying, "enough!" There is, after all, wall-to-wall comment on COP21 (as you would expect and is quite proper). The decision to take the fight to Syria is infinitely more important whatever the decision reached by the HoC but don't ever expect an eco-nut to agree with you!
Richard Verney: Very well said. I think you nailed it. And, for the benefit of those who think otherwise, that is why science - and the effects it has on our way of life - has to be debated.
I agree with Richard Verney's comments above , except for the final conclusion , that there will be no substance coming from the Paris talks.
It may be true of the rest of the EU and US , but I fear that it will not be the case with the UK .
Cameron is a weak leader , very sensitive to the slightest criticism ( as shown by his often hysterical response to Milliband at Question time in the last parliament) and he will not want the media and the Lib Dems/Lab/Greens to criticise him for not giving away more of the national income.
At midday on Radio 4 a few days ago a senior medical man , working with the care of the elderly , pointed out that lack of funding had reduced income and therefore quality in some care establishments and individual's homes to the point where people may appear in hospital with conditions that in the UK we thought had been eliminated 100 years ago , eg scabies and malnutrition.
That is just one area where donation of national; income with no benefit to the UK whatsoever is destroying the standard of life that working people have worked for ,and literally fought for, over many generations , but to our Govt and to the most journalists and opposition politicians this is of no significance.
Come off it, the Greens are doing a great job.
Without them we might choose the wrong sort of fuel for our cars, the wrong sort of fridge or washing machine, we might waste precious water, we might not wash half our rubbish before throwing it out, we might fit the wrong kind of flushing toilet, we could be wasting energy because it's too cheap, and much much more besides.
The Greens tell us exactly what we can and cannot do – and it's all for our own good.
Oh dear, I make them sound like fascists.
Er... hang on a minute...
For those thinking Paris will not result in stupid, costly and dangerous agreements, think again.
The under reporting and misreporting of this is allowing the real trouble makers, like President Obama, to work in private with no accountability. He has been caught out over his incoherent foreign policy which is now, as predicted, resulting in terror attacks in the US. He will blame those who criticized him and come up with something to change the topic. That something is likely to be a version of his so-called Executive Orders to commit the US to an insane climate policy that Congress will not be able to stop. Climate kooks do not care about anything but getting their way. They have nothing to debate. The climate fanatics are right, in their minds, to take anything and do anything they can get away with.
It would be great to see greens and poor scientists such as ATTP in a debate with Piers Corbyn, who is a brilliant physicist.
Bennet: "...preposterous views shouldn't be legitimised..."
Rice: "...consider the possibility that people don't want to debate with you because they don't regard you as someone who is interested in an honest debate..."
Environmentalism is a narcissistic developmental disorder.
Ben,
No idea what you're geting at but - then again - little of what you say makes much sense, so no great surprise there.
Philip,
Based on what he said last night on the BBC he hides it remarkably well, so well that it's virtually invisible.
Phillip: It would be great to see greens and poor scientists such as ATTP in a debate with Piers Corbyn, who is a brilliant physicist.
Debates between physicists are rarely interesting or revealing, and nothing is as dull as debate about whether or not CO2 is a greenhouse gas. In fact, the debate about the consequences and remedies of global warming are better had after bracketing the question, and taking it for granted as true. The climate debate descends to science, though, and to 'basic physics' in particular. It isn't helpful.
Physics, for instance, doesn't help us understand Natalie Bennett being so detached from reality (or Ken so alienated from it), much less the anti-scientific, and anti-human basis of their worldview.
Ben,
Hmmm, this I actually agree with. So, maybe you could explain to others here that the point is that the debate should really be about what we should do - given our scientific understanding - and not really debate the scientific understanding itself - well, other than through the standard scientific channels.
Projecting again?
Should she
a. Admit that the satellite record is correct and surface temperature record is the creation of a group of charlatans?
b. Argue with actual unadjusted non-model based data.
c Anadin Extra* Pause Denial Plus and lie down in a darkened room
*Other analgesics are available.
Sandy,
Thanks, you're helping to make my point. Appreciated.
I think the Greens need to stick to 'Fair Trade' Coffee Mornings. I am sure they are very good at them, as the photo suggests. There is room in the US and EU markets for niche South American drug products other than cafeine, and the export market is very lucrative.
It is worth noting that South American harvests never feature in global warming discussions.
Ken: -So, maybe you could explain to others here that the point is that the debate should really be about what we should do ....
Sure. It seems to me that if we take the material fact of global warming for granted, we discover that environmentalists have presumed that society's sensitivity to climate is the same thing as climate's sensitivity to CO2.
The fact of climate change 'being real' has very few obvious or necessary consequences in fact. Thus we can say with confidence that not one single death nor one single dollar net loss are the necessary consequences of N degrees of climate change until N simply becomes absurd. In fact, much has to be presupposed as true to argue otherwise.
It is these presuppositions which make Rice and Bennett so different from the rest of the world, and which makes them feel so elevated above it -- their sense of self-importance, like any cult member.
Projecting again?
Isn't that just what we said you were doing?
Ben,
Okay, you've rapidly headed back into your normal "say things that don't make any sense but that sound clever to those who don't know any better" position.
Really? Like a "cult member". And you have trouble trying to understand why some don't want to debate with people like yourself. It's not a complicated thing to work out.
Possibly, but it doesn't really make much sense. I fully expect people here regard me as dishonest. I'm, however, not the one complaining about the lack of people willing to debate. If we're talking about science specifically, then I don't see the point, as scientific disagreements are not resolved via debate. If we're talking about policy, then I do think that it is worth debating and is really what should be being discussed more. However, your response illustrates the fundamental problem; few are actually willing to really do so, whatever they might say.
I am still laughing at this guy's repeated appeal to 'conservation of energy, mass and momentum' as an argument for:
1) Why mentioning 'the missing heat' supposedly is a straw man (that was 'conservation of energy), and
2) Why one shouldn't attempt to test against an appropriate null-hypothesis while trying to establish whether there is any detectable signal among the noise. (The argument went like 'the statistical (noise) model was irrelevant since in the real world energy, mass and momentum is conserved)
You can't make this stuff up. And still the guy argues that he's interested in science and even arguing it!?
Ken -you've rapidly headed back into your normal "say things that don't make any sense but that sound clever to those who don't know any better" position.
What you object to is : It seems to me that if we take the material fact of global warming for granted, we discover that environmentalists have presumed that society's sensitivity to climate is the same thing as climate's sensitivity to CO2.
It really isn't complicated. Do you deny that there is such a 'thing' as climate's sensitivity to CO2, such that this sensitivity can be meaningfully measured? Let's call this CS.
And do you deny that society is to some extent sensitive to climate? Let's call this SS.
CS and SS are two fundamental dimensions of the climate debate -- of consequence -- are they not?
And environmentalists imagine that CS and SS are equivalent, don't they, so that for any amount of CS, you can estimate the consequences for SS. Or do you deny that they do?
So how does the proposition fail to make sense?
Ken: And you have trouble trying to understand why some don't want to debate with people like yourself. It's not a complicated thing to work out.
I don't have any trouble understanding environmentalists' intransigence. Greens close ranks as a consequence of their own institutional crises. Where would institutional science be without an encompassing crisis? Where would post-democratic political institutions be, without a planet to save?
Debate and democracy are not fundamentals of 21st Century Western politics, but are yet necessary rituals.
Environmentalism is a form of self-justification. Environmentalism did not develop a culture of debate or democracy in the way that preceding political movements or ideologies had to. Environmentalism is hostile to democracy and debate because it has to be. It's essential, inherent, from its anti-humanism, outwards.
The greens generally prefer to target and recruit from naive young people, or just those they consider too ignorant to argue.
I was seventeen when they were invited to proselytize to 5th and 6th-formers in our school library, clearly expecting a passive audience such as they might get at a BBC interview. Their representative was a sanctimonious person, very similar in appearance to Natalie Bennet as I now recall. She didn't much like people disagreeing with her, and didn't seem to be expecting it. She was also spectacularly uneducated in science, but did a good line in hysteria. Nothing much has changed in the decades since.
Ben,
I was going to write a lengthier response, but you've just disappeared so far down the rabbit hole, I really can't be bothered. Do you really think what you say makes any sense, or do you just say it for effect?
Ken - Do you really think what you say makes any sense, or do you just say it for effect?
I asked you to explain which part of my argument didn't make sense to you. I even broke it down to make it easier for you.
The fact that you couldn't engage in dialogue even to this extent only serves to make my argument that the problem with environmentalism is almost pathological. You'll brook no dissent; it's like debate with a religious zealot -- it only yields your anger, because you don't believe you need to justify or account for your argument to have it prevail.
Ben,
Really? I rather gave up after the "you're like a cult member". Wasn't that obvious? But let's look at this
Problem 1. You seem to have lumped a large group of people into a single category called "environmentalists", all of whom are suddenly intransigent.
Maybe you really are talking about Green party members, but - again - I suspect you labelling a large diverse group as all being "Greens".
Where would institutional science be without an encompassing crisis?
Probably where it's been for a very long time. Highly diverse and doing a large range of different things. That you feel all left out is really your problem, not their's.
Again, you fail to acknowledge that I am here engaging in something. I suspect that this "somethine" could reasonably described as dialogue, even if a rather ineffective version.
I believe I actually agreed with you about something, so this seems rather odd.
Religious zealot, anger. I also haven't really made an argument. I've suggested that the problem may be on your side, rather than on the other. You seem to have simply dismissed this possibility. Also, do I really need to explain this to you again? Surely this is obvious. So far you used "like a cult member", "like a religious zealot", "pathological", "brook no dissent". Are you still having trouble understanding why many may not want to have dialogue with you? You seem remarkably keen to not actually engage in it, despite what you say. Why would that be?
The one side that is willing to debate and engage with the other has not got the problem.
On the other the side are fanatics that believe with such zealotry that they cannot bear to be questioned. They are the ones with the problem.
If they believed with such certainty that they could stand up to debate - there would be no problem.
There would be debate.
But there is no debate. And that's the choice of the closed-minded loonies.
The Greens.
We'd a gotten away with it if it weren't for them pesky observations.
Hat-tip scooby do.
Dec 4, 2015 at 9:34 AM | Unregistered Commenter...and Then There's Physics
M Courtney
Are you trying to make my case for me, or do you not realise that you're doing it? In case it isn't obvious to you, even if some felt that they could make a compelling argument, they may simply decide (quite reasonably) that trying to convinve people who will throw around such invectives is not worth the effort. Can you not at least consider that possibilty, or do you believe your view so strongly that there is simply no debate? Makes you seem rather close-minded, if so.
Ken has had an opportunity to explain the problem with the argument I offered. He cannot do so. He resorts to obtuse nit-picking and self-justification, complaining about having been lumped in with a broad category.
But Ken Rice's non-argument is an object lesson in green intransigence.
Further up the food chain, Bennett won't debate with a senior political figure, superficially because she doesn't want to 'legitimise' him -- as if it were in her gift as leader of a party with one MP to 'legitimise' a peer and former energy minister -- but in fact because as Andrew notes, she is frit.
Even further up the food chain, we should recall that the MPs voting for the hastily-constructed climate change act -- without knowledge of what it committed to the UK to -- were afraid to debate the points, and deferred the debate to an 'independent' panel. Sceptics and lukewarmers criticisms of the bill and of the act, now vindicated, have been routinely ignored, because of the extent of the cross party political consensus, which reflects politicians' broad disconnect from the public.
Energy and climate directives issued by the EU were not, until very recently, subject to the approval of the elected chamber of that institution. The consequences of those policies, too, are now being felt across Europe, the UK now facing a serious risk of energy shortages, for e.g..
As we type, a meeting in Paris aims to secure a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, from which all meaningful opposition is barred. Kyoto having been a failure -- as sceptics predicted, and warned -- even many from within the green camp are now reflecting on what went wrong with the top-down approach, but are unable to make any meaningful intervention. And even scientists are unable to confront the overt alarmism which is traded in Paris, and in media coverage of the same.
Green intransigence is not merely fear of debate; it is fear of democracy, and fear of people. It is manifest in the substance (such as it is) of greens' arguments. It is manifest in the personal character of environmentalists -- their emotions and attitudes. It is manifest in ecological ideology. And it is manifest in the political institutions that have been established or colonised by environmentalism.
Ben,
And you seem completely unwilling to consider any alternative to your rather odd argument in which you do lump all sorts of people into simplistic categories, and then make all sorts of sweeping claims that you fail to back up, or provide any evidence for. Does make it seems as though you might be the one who will brook no dissent. Odd that. Then again, no great surprise.